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After a large break from blogging I thought baking would be a good place to get back into it!

A friend at work gave me some Yogi-tea teabags in a sweet chilli flavour. I love my teas and also trying out any new hot drinks like this because I am an old soul & tea fanatic (my euphemism for not being life and soul of the party!) but I’m fine with that. My fav thing is to be curled up with a book or my cross stitching, I digress…

So anyway this gave me a lightbulb to make a tea loaf, one of my staple bakes that I haven’t made in an AGE. The tea contains cacao shells, liquorice, fennel, chilli and other spices. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to do a twist on a classic tea loaf. From the cacao flavourings and seeing there was a handful of dark choc chips in my cupboard I decided to sub some of the weight of the dried fruit for chocolate and to add some extra cinnamon and orange zest into the orange sponge.

I’m happy with the outcome, this is a lot lighter tasting than a traditional tea loaf, the chocolate and spice is a nice a subtle addition. A giant slab serves as a good breakfast anyway 🙂 dried fruit is one of your five a day right?

Place the dried fruit in a bowl and pour in over the hot tea, stir slightly to cover evenly. Leave overnight ideally or at least a few hours.

Preheat oven to 180c/160c fan/gas mark 4. Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin. Cream together the butter and sugar, add the egg and beat further adding a tbsp of the flour mixture weighed out if the butter/egg/sugar mix begins to curdle.

Add the zest to the butter/egg/sugar and beat in the flour and cinnamon. Stir the fruit mixture in too. Add the dark choc chips and fold in gently.

Spoon into the tin and spread the mix evenly. Sprinkle the Demerara sugar over the top.

Bake for an hour and test with a skewer to make sure it comes out clean.

Summers rolls are a simple, delicious & light dish – reflected in the name it really is more of a summer dish but at the moment I like to cling onto summery dishes & try to put a bit of sun in my day with fresh tasty dishes like this. I’m all for comfort food & stodge atm but this is also v simple & comforting in its own way. Its requires a bit of prep but so quick to assemble & eat once everything is ready. This is the lighter non fried equivalent of the spring roll if you haven’t tried this before. Its a perfect recipe to attempt in Jan if you want something a bit healthier.

This is my first blog for a loooooong long time. I figured a post holiday themed post was a good excuse as any to get back into this. I am still in post holiday blues, I visited Vietnam & fell in love. It’s a beautiful & amazing country, the food is so tasty and the people so friendly. I would love to return one day. I’ve returned with a lot of food inspiration too.

Combinations of fillings for the rolls are endless, this is what has appealed & worked for me but you can easily omit any ingredients for different crisp veggies, swap the omelette for sliced belly pork or shredded chicken & many more combos

To prepare, boil some water and pour over the rice noodles in a bowl, allow to soak for a few minutes. Drain, cool in cold water and drain again.

Beat the eggs, add 1 tbsp of vegetable oil to a small saucepan and make an omelette. Allow the omelette to cool on a plate and slice into thin strips after

Blanch the beansprouts, submerge into cold water and drain. Prepare the veg. Halve the prawns lengthways & roughly chop the herbs together. The thai basil has a very distinct & aniseedy ish flavour, its well worth trying to get if you can, its available in most chinese markets. If not just stick to coriander & mint.

Grab a plate and soak a cloth napkin if possible – or slightly soak kitchen paper. Drain slightly and lay on the plate. Place a paper roll on the soaked napkin or kitchen cloth and press gently for a few seconds. This will soften the roll to make it more pliable to make the summer roll.

The summer roll has a distinctive look with the prawn appearing most prominent – this is achieved by the way you layer the roll. First a the top of the roll, add the raw sliced veggies, beansprouts, herbs, noodles & sliced omelette. Just a sprinkle of each. Roll tightly till half the paper is rolled. Place 2 or three of the halved prawns into the crease of the paper, continue to roll so that the prawn appears on the outside more.

Repeat.

For the sauce, measure and prepare the above dipping sauce ingredients into a small bowl and mix together.

Any recipe that incorporates peanut butter in, sweet or savory, is a winner for me. The sweet salty combination works really well here and the hidden later of strawberry jam beneath the buttercream peanut butter frosting makes me happy!

Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas Mark 6. Cream together the butter, peanut butter and sugar is a bowl till fluffy. Weigh out the flour, salt and baking powder in another bowl. One at a time beat the eggs into the butter sugar mix. Add a tablespoon of flour alongside each time to prevent curdling. Add the vanilla extract and stir again.

Carefully fold the flour mix into the butter-sugar-egg mix, a third at a time. After you’ve added and folded in the first third of the flour, fold in a third of the milk. Do this till all flour and milk is used up.

Spoon mix two thirds of the way into the cupcake cases and bake for 25 mins or till golden brown and a skewer comes out clean.

Allow the mix to cool. Once cool, using a sharp knife cut at a shallow angle into the top of the cupcake. Make a circular shape and remove this circle of sponge. Beat the strawberry jam in a small bowl to loosen it up. Using a teaspoon carefully fill the hole, not all the way up, in the cupcake.

To make the frosting, beat the butter, peanut butter and vanilla extract together till smooth. Carefully sift in the icing sugar about 1/4 at a time. This helps to remove any lumps. Add a couple of tablespoons of milk if the mix is too stiff.

Add roughly a tablespoon dollop of frosting to the cupcake filled with jam, spread as desired. You could always pipe for a neater effect but I guess I am just lazy like that! It gets it the way of the time I could spend eating leftover frosting 🙂

Chocolate mousse is a classic, you can’t go wrong. Its so simple and smooth with a lovely rich flavour. The bubbles lighten it and stop it being too sickly. Honeycomb works great with this, the sugariness counters any bitterness of the dark chocolate and adds crunchy contrast.

In a heat proof bowl place the broken dark chocolate and warm water together. In a small saucepan bring water to a boil, once boiled keep at a gentle simmer. Place the heat proof bowl of water and chocolate above the water, melt this at a gentle heat till all the chocolate has melted, keep stirring towards the end to make sure no chocolate sinks and catches at the bottom.

Once melted, place the chocolate/water mix to one side to cool slightly.

In another large bowl, add the egg whites and start to whisk into stiff peaks with an electric whisk. Ensure the bowl is completely clean and dry before whisking to get maximum peakiness (the official whisking term!). Once the egg whites hold their own shape and take a glossy look on, gradually add the caster sugar, whisking throughout to incorporate it evenly.

Beat the egg yolks into the slightly cooled chocolate mix.

Using a large metal spoon, add a heaped spoon of the egg white mix to the chocolate mix. Fold gently till lumps have disappeared. This will help to loosen the chocolate mix. At this point you can pour the chocolate mix into the remaining egg whites, patiently fold the mixture as gently as you can till no white remains and lumps have gone.

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Pour into your selected ramekin/cocktail glass or other serving dish and cool for at least 4 hours. This can be made the night before but won’t keep much long than about 2-3 days, the air starts to escape and you lose the whole moussey effect!

Honeycomb

This takes about 10 mins maximum from start to finish. Timing is key. I love how the mixture bubbles up when the bicarb is added. This is a dangerous recipe to master cos you are never more than a few mins from crunchy, golden honeycomb.

This is a really sticky messy mix so I find it easier to just get a medium heavy set saucepan out that you will cook it in and measure everything in there on the scales.

First lightly grease a baking tray of roughly 20cm using vegetable oil.

Cube the butter and sprinkle in the pan, add the sugar and syrup. On a medium heat gently melt till bubbles emerge and the sugar has dissolved completely. Don’t be tempted to stir at any point. If the mix looks over dark or as if its burning on one side, swirl the liquid ever so slightly in the pan to even this out. Once all sugar has dissolved, bring to a rapid boil. When the mix takes a dark golden colour and bubbling up take off the heat. Very quickly add all the bicarb and whisk very fast to make the mix even more frothy and bubbly.

Pour out evenly as you can onto the greased tray. The pan and mix will be extremely hot so allow both to cool completely. The honeycomb should set within half an hour/hour kind of time. You can then break it up easily.

Enjoy on its own or its great sprinkled on mousse, ice cream or as someone suggested to me when I brought it into work – coated in chocolate!

To assemble with the mousse, place the shards of honeycomb in a sandwich bag and bash into teeny pieces using a rolling pin, alternatively use the shards as spoons for a fondue kind of thing.

This is very filling and perfect summer recipe. Takes less time than you would think and tastes very fresh and delicious! First things though, I don’t think you can take it as a pizza crust substitute but see it as another meal in its own right. The egg and cheese make for a denser, eggier kind of bread hybrid but tasty nonetheless. No carbs in the crust and a great veggie dinner recipe or one for those allergic to gluten.

Ingredients

450g Raw Cauliflower

1 Large Egg

75g Mozzarella Cheese (grate 50g and slice the remaining 25g for the topping)

2 Tbsp Parmesan cheese (finely grated)

1/2 Tsp Dried Basil

1/2 Tsp Dried Oregano

1/2 Tsp Garlic Salt

Sea salt & Fresh ground black pepper to taste

1 Beef Tomato (finely sliced and deseeded)

Handful of Asparagus stalks

Pinch Red Chilli Flakes

Mushrooms

Baby Sweetcorn

Preheat the oven to 210C/Gas mark 7. Line a pizza tray if possible, or other baking tray with greaseproof paper.

Take the raw cauliflower and blitz in a blender till a crumb like consistency is achieved.

Place the crumbs in a microwave safe bowl and cook for 5-6 mins, stirring halfway through. If you don’t own a microwave you can steam it but you have to squeeze all the moisture out afterwards otherwise the ‘dough’ won’t work and will fall apart.

In a large bowl, crack and whisk the egg. Add the dried herbs, salt, pepper. Add the cooked cauliflower and grated cheeses, mix till well combined.

Once everything is mixed enough, using your hands work the dough into a ball. It will be quite loose so don’t worry about this! Flatten this onto the lined baking tray and push out till about 10 inch in diameter and half an inch thickness. Bake for 15-20 mins or until golden and bubbling.

This is so simple I toyed with even making it into a whole post. But the deliciousness I think warrants one. It is so sweet, thick, creamy and refreshing but virtuous at the same time!

This has to be one of the quickest standby healthy desserts at your fingertips.

Slice up roughly 1 banana for each scoop. So 1 banana will be a small but adequate portion for one. Place in a sandwich bag or some freezer safe storage container. Pop in the fridge till frozen.

Remove and place in a deep fill bowl or jug. Using a hand blender, go at it till it has a creamy ice cream consistency or alternatively use any form of blender, if you are blenderless (is that a word) then mashing with a fork ia longer but same effect is achievable!

I served mine with raw cacao nibs which added a lovely bitter and crunchy contrast. I will be making this very soon again, experimenting with swirling in peanut butter or fruit compote of some sort.

The plump raisins, nutty wholemeal flour and crunchy walnuts worked beautifully with moist grated carrot sponge and mild cinnamon flavours running throughout. It has been a long time since I’ve made a carrot cake. I had a glut of carrots to use from a weekly shop and decided now was the time! This is easily my favorite cake or at least makes top 3. Its a classic! There is something so wholesome and filling about it. Not just a sugary indulgence but the spices, carrots and wholemeal flour make it into something more special, a hybrid moving more towards dessert territory perhaps?

Maybe it stems from being a child when my mum used to walk with me down to the local shops at the weekend and me always picking the slice of carrot cake with fondent carrots decorating the top, delicately peeling the carrot off, savouring the slice and saving that carrot till last. It is a proper comfort food for me. Unfortunately this version has a rather less exciting topping – but nonetheless delicious.

Now that I have the more traditional version out my system, I want to experiment with a vegan recipe next so watch this space….

Ultimate Zesty Carrot Cake with Raisins and Walnuts

Ingredients

1 Large Orange

100g Raisins

125ml Vegetable Oil

125g Wholemeal Flour

1 Tsp baking powder, plus a pinch

1 rounded Tsp Ground Cinnamon

1/2 Tsp All Spice

100g Dark Soft Sugar

40g Light Brown Soft Sugar

240g Grated Carrots

2 Eggs

100g Self-Raising flour

60 Walnuts, Roughly Chopped

Icing

175g Icing Sugar

Squeeze of Juice from an Orange

12 Whole Walnuts

Preheat the oven to 160c/140C Fan Oven/Gas mark 3. Grease and line a 20cm Square Tin. Firstly zest the whole orange. Measure the raisins and squeeze out 3 Tbsp of juice from the zested Orange, pour on the raisins to soak up the juice. Save the rest of the orange to make the icing later.

Grate the carrots and set aside. Measure the dry ingredients in a bowl and stir together.

Get two bowls. Separate the first egg, put the yolk in one bowl and the white in another. Crack the other egg into the bowl with the yolk. Whisk the bowl with the egg and the yolk. Add the sugar to this and continuing whisking till thick and foamy. Slowly pour in the oil, whisking as you go along, then add the orange zest.

Rinse and pat the whisk dry. To the bowl with the egg white, add a pinch of baking powder.Whisk till you get soft peaks. Fold into the bowl containing the egg yolks, sugar, oil & zest.

Add to this half the bowl containing the dry ingredients. Stirring gently till mixed well. Then add the other half of the dry. Finally, add the grated carrot, raisins with juice and walnuts. Fold till incorporated evenly.

Pour the mix into the tin and level it out.

Bake for an hour, check with a skewer.

After the cake has fully cooked, in a medium bowl measure the icing sugar. Using 3-4 Tbsp of water and 2-3 Tbsp of Orange juice, thoroughly mix the icing sugar and liquids into a thick icing. You want it at a consistency where it doesn’t even drip off a spoon when tilted slightly. Add liquid or icing sugar to adjust accordingly.

Spread evenly across the top and place walnuts in whatever pattern you desire! Finish with a fine sprinkling of cinnamon (optional, I just really love cinnamon!)